Sunday, October 30, 2011

Shawn, I had a similar experience when attending InfoComm earlier this year. The focus on education was certainly impressive and you can see that many companies view this as a lucrative vertical. It is wonderful to have an influx of intest in our field but atthe same time I'm always concerned about the ways money can influence educational policy. It is certainly better than the alternative but I think we have a responsibility to maintain those relationships with a measure of caution. Loved reading your post, thanks for sharing your experience.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

This week's Wimba session was crucial in identifying the goals and objectives of the course. I am most interested in the Publishing/Presentation Project. I think the world of E-books has opened up the world of publication. I am interested in a number of academic conferences hosted by the American Psychological Association, the National Communication Associate, and the Florida Communication Association. I am looking forward to putting together a solid package for presentation. I feel that my presentation skills have been well developed but this project will help me build my presence in the industry, something I am very excited about. This is a fantastic opportunity to take my research out into the world and show my results. The flow of the course feels natural and I love being able to revisit this blog. There is a lot of information to review here but I think the process will be incredibly rewarding.

Hello friends! For this post I would like to share an interesting website with you. hitRECord is a website/concept developed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Members of the hitRECord community credit "Records" or pieces of art both musical and visual. From there members are allowed to use and remix another members work eventually leading to a full project. The community democratically decides on projects and crowd-sources the skills of the community. Some of the final projects are pretty amazing but the process is really at the core. I am inspired by the openness of these users to share their work and allow it to be remixed so freely. This attitude seen in the Creative Commons community really shows the spirit of collaboration and artistic exploration.

Here is an example of a hitRECord piece: http://hitrecord.org/records/40939

"Hey Lara! I was excited to see Girl Talk in the documentary as well, great work out music! Copyright is definitely a tricky world and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. I often find myself in a "grey area" as well and I hope this class will clear up some of those concerns. Giving credit is certainly a good first step in protection."

While reviewing copyright issues for Media Asset Creation I was reminded of my first experience with copywriting. I have been a songwriter since my teens but I never thought of copyrighting my work until I started making money with music. After I released my first record I joined the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers. I started learning the bones of music copyright out of necessity. Copyrighting is certainly a large topic and introducing the myths of copyright can provide a solid base to what can and cannot be copyrighted.

Media industries have changed extensively in the past decade along with attitudes towards ownership. While we can all agree that media creators should be compensated fairly for their work many users have abused or ignored this concept with the availability of illegally acquired media. Publishers who have grown with the technology have found success. One significant example would be the subscription model used by Netflix and Spotify. The artist has to make the choice regarding how their work can be used, we have seen growth in this realm by the Creative Commons license.

In the Good Copy/Bad Copy I was immediately taken by the mention of Girl Talk. I have been a fan of Girl Talk for a couple years and I consider what he does to be artistic and original while he uses its and pieces of copyrighted works. As Sir Isaac Newton said we are "Standing on the shoulders of giants". Perhaps this is just a new way to take a creation to "the next level". I was also reminded of the work of Shepard Fairey and his famous HOPE creation for the Obama campaign. I still have much to learn about this minefield of legality called copyright law but these videos have certainly brought me closer to a workable understanding.